[Life after college is hard. Like really hard. But it's not so hard that you should curl up in a ball and watch E! marathons all day long. Not only are we covering the experience from a first-hand perspective, but we're now covering it from a how-to-survive-it perspective. Every week, we're going to bringing the best advice to getting through your first post-grad year. Because sometimes, your grandmother's "just go to law school" advice just doesn't cut it.]

Ladies, let’s be real: finding a job is tough stuff. Before you get to sending those resumes out, before you worry about which job-related websites to start checking religiously, make sure you’ve got your basics covered. After all, what’s that they say about a good foundation being the key to a solid…something or other? It’s not just a nice platitude that encourages you to order an extra basket of nachos before a night of heavy drinking. This common sense can also be applied to…wait for it…matters of the Real World.

So what, you ask, are the key ingredients to kick of a successful job hunt? As someone who has been in and out of job interviews at the same rate that LiLo checks in and out of rehab, trust me when I say preparation is everything. And to ensure that you are prepped like none other, I present to you the ultimate job search checklist:

The Outfit
You want to come off confident and capable, but not overtly sexy or worse — dowdy. Try not to over think this one, as you might easily find yourself standing naked in front of your closet, tossing outfit after outfit on the floor. Remember it’s best to stick to the timeless elements of a successful casual-but-not-too-casual/dressy-but-not-too-dressy ensemble.

Grab some well-fitting black pants (nothing wide-leg, nothing wool, nothing pinstripe) like these hip-yet-professional skinny pants from The Gap, pair them with a bright silky top, toss a cardigan on top and add in an edited selection of accessories. Easy as pie! And don’t be afraid to drop a little extra cash on your interview look– you’ll get plenty of wear of out it, and you can later translate the various pieces into different office-ready outfits when the time comes. (For more in-depth advice, check out which color is best to wear at an interview)

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Balance is really a simple science: if you have a scale and you put a brick on one side and a feather on the other, the brick is hitting the floor. I learned that lesson long ago and try to apply it in my everyday life, even when I’m making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; if I don’t spread my peanut butter evenly enough on my piece of bread, and lay it on too thick on one end, I can barely get through it without gagging or being completely repulsed by its sticky and overwhelming existence.

But let’s talk about balance in my real life, yes? I mean, I could talk about peanut butter and jelly for days but in this case, the peanut butter is me and I’m just trying to spread myself evenly against the Wonderbread of life. Whoa, did I just go there? Yup, I did. I compared my life to PB&J. And I’m totally OK with that.

Lately, I’ll be honest, I’ve been finding it excruciatingly difficult to balance my personal life and spread myself evenly across everything I feel I need to do. I understand I can’t be good at everything (I learned that when I auditioned for choir….), but when it comes to balancing what’s important in my post-grad life, do I have to have to pick only one of the five things I want to excel in? Read More »

The word of life the day is: mistake.

I come face to face with mistakes more than I’d like to admit.  In fact, they stalk my life worse than anything DJ Pauly D has ever encountered on The Shore. Today, I made the mistake of eating five chocolate dipped macaroons before going on an impromptu run outside. Let’s just say I haven’t felt a stomach cramp like that since, well, ever. And the other day,  I drank coffee after 3 P.M., unaware that I have the same internal workings as an 80-year-old woman.  I couldn’t fall asleep for days.  Not to mention, I had terrible heartburn.

But my mistakes don’t only involve internal bodily harm. The truth is, lately I’ve been behaving in weird, mysterious and dumb ways. I’ve partied on the occasional weekday. I went running back to a guy that didn’t deserve even the time it takes to bat an eyelash in his direction. I stopped working out because I thought eating less would make me happier.

Mistake, mistake, big (literally) mistake.

And while these self-inflicted issues continue to frolic my way, I always have that small glitter of reassurance. Reassurance in knowing that (even though I’ve learned the hard way), I’ll never do it again.  Hands on experiences and mistakes are always the best, right?  Once I learn the hard way, I learn. I learn to never make the same mistake twice. Right?

Wait, why is no one answering me?
Hello?
Bueller?
Am I right?!

I’m wrong. Read More »

To be honest, I don’t remember much from reading Charles Dickens’ book Great Expectations when I was in seventh grade, but I do remember being extremely scared. Seriously, that book gave me nightmares.  Was there a cemetery in the plot? Did someone abduct somebody? Did it even have anything to do with having ‘expectations?’ Or was that just a clever title twist in a book full of freaky shiz?  (Sidenote: Wow, I didn’t learn anything in seventh grade. How did I even get to college in the first place? Whatever, I’m going somewhere with this, I swear.)

Regardless of my lack of 7th grade education, this book landed softly in my mind recently and I got to thinking about expectations. In my life, I have an expectation timeline that goes a little something like this: With any given situation, my expectations are minimal during the beginning.  Once the situation hits halfway, my expectations usually skyrocket.  Take a relationship for example.  When I start talking to a guy I’m interested in I don’t expect a lot; I have fun, play carefree, play coy.  But once he starts to impress me and things progress, my expectations hit levels people could be offended by.  Suddenly, I’m waiting on him to kiss my feet and feed me mini chocolate chips and peanut butter with a baby spoon (What? Only my fantasy?) And the same story is true for all aspects of my life.

Except, since graduating college, my personal expectations have turned backwards. That’s right – as a post-grad, I expect too much out of every beginning.  I squeeze the shiz out of the orange before I can have a taste.  It’s awful.  I used to gain expectations through experience and now I have a ton of expectations before the experience.  Result:  I’m always disappointed. Read More »

I’ve been around long enough to learn that it’s the little things in life that make you happy. In college it was dollar beer nights and canceled classes and a new going-out shirt. And now, now it’s all changed. I’m suddenly appreciating the things in my life that I used to take for granted.

Take drinking for instance.  Before I started drinking, I never realized the true sparkly goodness of a bottle of blue Gatorade and a nap.  Before I went to college, I didn’t understand how happy home-cooked meals could make me.  Before summer comes and I sweat my tits off sitting out by the pool, I can never comprehend how good a surprise snowstorm can look.

OK, you get the point. Everything looks different when you’re looking at it from a new angle.

When I graduated from college, I started picking up on random things I never thought I would be grateful for, like, ever.  And I’ve taken it upon myself to compile a yummy list of things (if you are an upcoming post-grad) you should learn to appreciate right now.

So here you go. Take this list and remember it for when you graduate, because you’re about to realize that there’s a lot more to love in your life than you realize.

1. Horoscopes: I’m not one to receive a daily horoscope forecast all over Facebook for everyone to see.  But I am one to compulsively check my Elle.com astrology in private to gain a strong force of personal direction.  In a spot where I am fully confused about life, horoscopes help me define things.  They give me clarity and direction in a foggy realm.  If you’re not looking at yours every day, I highly suggest you do. And um, leave that shiz off my Facebook news feed.

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Once upon a time, there was a girl named Brittany (why yes, I’m beginning this post by talking in third person).  Her roommates were Mom, Dad, and cat.  She spent all day eating Frosted Flakes and watching The O.C. re-runs and wondering where Benjamin Mackenzie’s career went wrong. She slept deeply and soundly until late hours of the afternoon, wasn’t keeping a healthy social life, and finished a bottle of Grey Goose in six months.  Her life was essentially an embarrassment to all 23-year-olds, as well as to the overall post-grad society.

Suddenly, one sunny, completely normal afternoon, everything changed for Brittany.  She put down her Frosted Flakes spoon, ran out of episodes of Degrassi, got a job, a new spicy apartment in the city, and jump started her social life.

Everyone rejoice.  For she lived happily every after.
Or not.  Because like Noah and Allie (ehem, Notebook reference), it’s never over.

OK, enough of that third person stuff. The truth is, my life went from zero to sixty in a matter of five days, and I lost my steering and breaks.

Let me explain.

I literally went from sitting in my parents’ house for hours on end watching HGTV with my mother for six months to having a real life.  I love my mother and I love quality decorating tips, but nothing about that should be happening to any human being considering eventual marriage, a steady income and a stable social life.  Therefore, the minute I got an awesome job, new apartment and stitched up my social life, I was like a zoo animal who had been released back into the jungle. There was no way that animal would survive without a few hard-earned, hands-on lessons.

You’ve got it, folks – I’m back into the wild jungle that I call a normal 23-year-old life and I’m a hot mess.

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You got this, girl.

Alright post-grads, future post-grads, and people who think they are post-grads but are really just thirty-years-old and clinging on to their blissful youth.  For some reason as a post-grad myself, I’ve found it easiest to write about things that depress me.  I guess I just like an excuse to indulge in brownie sundaes nightly. But the truth is, the post-grad life isn’t depressing!  In reality, it’s a beautiful time for all of us to open doors after some have been slammed in our faces.  Think about the power you obtain in that single movement!

But I digress.

When we leave college, we immediately assume we’ve lost so much. And by so much, I mean everything. I’ll be straight up honest with you: when I was in college, I was an annoying, cocky, lady-child (in the best way possible). I think it had something to do with the fact that while I was living the dream, napping intensely during the week, drinking until 3AM, getting in everywhere for free as long as I flashed someone my boobs student ID – basically living like a homeless celebrity – I felt as if nothing could get past me.

College was my own protective placenta of awesomeness; a slice of time when I could bask in everything that was working out for me (i.e. free food, a semi-careless attitude, eating whatever sat in front of me, not worrying about what anyone thought).  I know I’m completely sounding like a cocky a**hole, but college made me feel weirdly confident.  I felt like I could do anything, dream anything and, most importantly, see everything clearly.  Perhaps it was some evolved pair of college beer goggles, but I saw everything without any glitches, scratches or worries.  I knew that by the end of the semester I would have survived somehow and I could look forward to a fresh slate in January. Read More »

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When I was a little girl and thought of growing up, I closed my eyes and saw a life full of prosperity. I saw a world where I could do what I loved most, play Barbies in my spare time, and make a lot of money being a veterinarian, curing boxes of adorable puppies on a daily basis.  Then when I turned thirteen and reality was a little clearer, Celine Dion proved to me I had the pipes to belt out ‘My Heart Will Go On’ until my heart (and those around me) would not go on any longer.  I knew that someday I would date Justin Timberlake because we were at the same place in our musical careers and we could understand each other.

When I graduated high school and Justin Timberlake started dating Cameron Diaz, I knew I had to pick an alternative life.  It took some time (and a few people cringing at the sound of my voice), but I soon realized I could not be the next pop artist. Instead, I would go to college and dig into its grab bag of opportunity.

I wanted to find out who and what I wanted to be.  And I had a four-year time crunch. Read More »

So last week, I had a bit of a meltdown. A pre-grad crisis if you will, freaking out about what comes next before I even get there. So this week, I’m trying to fix that in the best way I know how. By eating lots of ice cream and watching old episodes of Gossip Girl making a list. But not just any list, a list of post-grad goals for myself. They’re rather vague but they are things worth working towards, things that I actually want to achieve someday.

1. Find a job that makes me happy. I double majored in English Literature and Philosophy. Not exactly majors that have a set career path. And so in the past four years I’ve contemplated everything from lawyer to information technology assistant to Food Network star (mostly just so I could co-host with Bobby Flay) and I’m really no closer to figuring out where I’m going to end up. But even if I have to take a few starter jobs along the way I am eventually going to choose a career that makes me happy, whatever that may be.

2. Get my masters. I’m not sure if I’ll be starting grad school in the fall or not, but I do know that I will be attending at some point. And not just because some statistic somewhere says that some number of people who get their masters are some percentage more likely to make a higher salary (I want to write…who am I kidding, anyway), but because it’s a personal goal of mine. I’ve always been a lover of learning, and even though I’ve had my fair share of complaints about classes this year, when it comes down to it all, I really do enjoy it. So I want to get my masters. At some point.

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